All Articles Tagged "Precious"

Knowing that you’re being lied on and that people believe what’s being said about you is a terrible thing, but being lied on in public and on a global scale?

That’s on a level most of us can’t even comprehend.

That is something Mo’Nique had to deal with recently. The Academy Award-winning actress experienced what many would argue was the most humiliating predicament of her career.

It all began back in February when the Precious star revealed to The Hollywood Reporter that she had supposedly been “blackballed by Hollywood,” a sentiment expressed to her by director Lee Daniels, who she also revered as a friend.

It was a risky admission that could have gone either way. It could have placed an ominous cloud over Mo’Nique’s latest film, Blackbird, which she was promoting when she shared this information, or it could drum up extra publicity for the independent production. She hadn’t been seen on the big screen since 2009, so sharing this information was a gamble. However, Mo’Nique isn’t one to shy away from risks career wise.

But everything took a strange turn when Daniels went on CNN to tell his side of the story. With the gloves officially off, Mo’Nique decided to spill more tea.

The outspoken star fired back, arguing that if she weren’t a team player as Daniels had insisted, he would not have offered her the role of Cookie Lyons on his breakout hit show, Empire.

This shook Empire fans to the core as they could not imagine anyone else being in the role besides Taraji P. Henson. And when co-creator Danny Strong shot back saying it wasn’t true, the show’s fans believed him and criticized Mo’Nique. Many people felt that she was a jilted star who needed to move on already.

That is until she produced receipts.

During Mo’Nique’s interview on Sway in the Morning, she showed off printed emails between both Daniels’ camp and her own management team as they discussed her involvement with the show. Sway read the emails aloud: “Lee Daniels had a conversation with Mo’Nique about his new television pilot for Imagine TV/Fox called Empire. We would like to screen test her for the role of ‘Cookie.’ Please contact us with her television quotes, so that we can start a test, option, deal. We are tentatively looking at Monday, Feb 24 for the screen test.”

There the proof was, in black and white. While Daniels and Strong were apparently trying to diminish Mo’Nique’s character and tarnish her professional reputation, they were ultimately exposed as shady, and now it’s their character being brought into question.

While she should have been talking about her latest creative venture in interviews, Mo’Nique has spent a lot of time and energy defending herself against Daniels, which I’m sure was pretty exhausting for her, and at times, the public.

But I don’t blame Mo’Nique. Being lied on is an awful thing (I’m speaking from experience), and had Mo’Nique put more focus on her new film rather than defending herself, we’d still have a skewed view of her. We would believe that she used this entire situation for publicity and wouldn’t want to support her or her new movie.

When someone lies on you, it is a betrayal, especially if you consider the person a friend as Mo’Nique considered Daniels.

If this happens to you, the first thing you need to digest is that if this person could lie on you, they were probably never really your friend in the first place. Owning that thought is the first step because it allows you to understand who this person is. Getting over the shock of it all will help you figure out what to do next.

In Mo’Nique’s case, she had proof. Unfortunately, sometimes we’re lied on and there is no proof. People just have to take your word. If you’ve exhausted yourself trying to prove to others that you have been lied on, I suggest letting it go and allowing karma to work its magic. There is nothing more precious than time, and once it is gone we cannot get it back. Don’t waste it trying to prove someone wrong and by trying to convince people of something you know is the truth. As long as you know the real deal, that’s what matters. The truth will reveal itself in time.

In the years since actress and comedienne Mo’Nique won an Academy Award for her role as the very malicious and abusive Mary in Precious, we’ve watched her slim down substantially and embrace a healthier lifestyle. But that’s all we’ve really watched her do, because she hasn’t had a big role on-screen since that Oscar win in 2009.

She has literally been in four movies since Precious came out: Steppin: The Movie, Blackbird (alongside Isaiah Washington), About and the TV movie Bessie, starring Queen Latifah, which is about the life of blues singer Bessie Smith. But why haven’t we seen her do anything else? According to the actress, and even Lee Daniels, the force behind Precious, it’s because Mo’Nique has been “blackballed” in the industry.

In an essay written for an upcoming issue of The Hollywood Reporter, she says that after her Oscar win, she thought the little gold man would bring her more respect, better choices for roles and more money, which it usually does. But because she didn’t campaign for her Oscar, and was cited as being somewhat “difficult” to work with, Mo’Nique says that Lee Daniels told her just a few months ago that she had been excluded in the industry.

“I got a phone call from Lee Daniels…And he said to me, ‘Mo’Nique, you’ve been blackballed.’ I said, ‘Why?’ And he said, ‘Because you didn’t play the game.’ I said, ‘Well, what game is that?’ He gave me no response.”

Campaigning for an Oscar is a pretty big deal when you’re trying to not only get recognition for a film, but want to see the effects of what happens when the film, or its actors, win (aka, a boost in ticket sales and notoriety). While most studios spend a great deal of money to campaign during awards season, according to Deadline, actors should be campaigning too:

Increasingly, the personal touch has become really helpful. If you have an actor who can plant him- or herself in Los Angeles and/or New York to do meet-and-greets during crucial voting periods, you have a better shot of making an impact. I have talked to many weary nominees at the end of the long process who have shaken so many hands, attended so many dinners, done so many Q&As and talk shows and receptions…

But Mo’Nique didn’t during the 2009-2010 awards season. When she won her Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Role, she even said in her acceptance speech that she was thankful that the Academy showed “that it can be about the performance and not the politics.” That, along with the actress claiming that people behind-the-scenes have called her “difficult,” “tactless” and “tacky,” has held her back. And interesting enough, according to her, those who claim she is difficult, tactless and tacky are “probably right.” But still, she’s not letting all that hold her back.

“That is why I have my beautiful husband because he’s so full of tact. I’m just a girl from Baltimore. But being from that place, you learn not to let anybody take advantage of you.”

Since coming to this realization, Mo’Nique says she’s learned not to take this whole game the bigwigs in Hollywood play personally, even after losing roles in The Butler, “Empire,” and Lee Daniels’ upcoming Richard Pryor biopic, roles which she says “all just went away.” But for his part in this, Daniels sent out a statement to The Hollywood Reporter saying that he still has love for the actress, but that the powers that be didn’t want her involved in such projects…

“Mo’Nique is a creative force to be reckoned with. Her demands through Precious were not always in line with the campaign. This soured her relationship with the Hollywood community. I consider her a friend. I have and will always think of her for parts that we can collaborate on, however the consensus among the creative teams and powers thus far were to go another way with these roles.”

It’s a jungle out here…especially in Hollywood. Despite being blackballed, Mo’Nique is slated to appear alongside Isaiah Washington in the upcoming film, BlackBird, which debuts April 24.

You can check out Mo’Nique’s full open letter in the new issue of The Hollywood Reporter when it drops on Feb. 27.

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Precious is a thought-provoking, gut-wrenching and heartbreaking independently-funded film that went on to become an Academy-Award winning success!

The movie is about an overweight, dark-skinned African American girl dealing with incest and child and sexual abuse who has to “push” through the abuse, her illiteracy and teen motherhood by attending an alternative school in hopes for her life to head in a new direction. Though most are familiar with these details, having read the novel the film was based on, there are many behind-the-scenes trivia you probably didn’t know happened in order to make this adapted film come to the big screen — Like the name of the film was changed from the novel’s name Push: The Novel to Precious to avoid conflict with the 2008 action film, Push. The novel was also republished as Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire.

In 2009, we saw a grim side to Mo’Nique in the Lee Daniel’s film, Precious with Gabourey Sidibe. Mo’Nique’s role earned her an Academy Award, and if you ever needed a refresher as to why she won the Oscar, her new film Blackbird will completely remind you. Rolling Out Magazine reported Mo’Nique will play a devout Christian mother whose teenage son struggles with his sexuality. During her Rolling Out interview, Mo’Nique revealed why Blackbird’s script resonated with her and her husband/business partner, Sheldon Hicks. Of the director, Patrick Ian Polk, and cast, Mo’Nique said:

[He’s] a brilliant director. I’ve never thought I’d get the opportunity with such a fearless director as Lee Daniels or a fearless actor like Gabourey Sidibe again and to work with Patrick [he] was just fearless and wasn’t willing to waiver from the story he needed to tell. Julian Walker was fearless and wasn’t willing to waiver for fear of being ridiculed for playing that role. To work with them; it was an honor.

To see Mo’Nique’s point, watch the trailer of Blackbird below, with Isaiah Washington and newcomer, Julian Walker.

To hear more of Mo’Nique’s interview with Rolling Out, listen to the video below.

If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s when one minority attempts to to marginalize another for the sake of their own personal cause and that is exactly what “The Butler” director Lee Daniels did in a recent interview with Larry King.

In discussing his experience growing up gay and coming into his sexuality, Daniels made a very sharp left in what could have been a productive discussion. Apparently in a previous interview he had remarked that gay people are third class citizens and when asked to expound on this idea by King, Daniels threw this dagger:

“I think they are prejudiced upon even from the African Americans too. I think that the reason we have AIDS…I did a movie called ‘Previous’ and when I was doing the research for ‘Precious,’ I walked into the gay mens health crisis center in New York City and I expected to see studying [of] AIDS and HIV, I expected to see a room full of gay men, but there are nothing but women that are there – black women with kids, I thought I had walked into the welfare office – but they service black women with AIDS, why?

Look, I won’t pretend to know the struggle of being a homosexual black male, or to be an expert on the bureaucracy AIDS research and treatment when it comes to the black community. However, if black women are getting services in a gay men’s clinic, that’s a systematic issue, not one that has to do with prejudice from the black community. Furthermore, a man’s inability to live his life freely as an openly homosexual male has no bearing, in my mind, on his inability to be sexually responsible. Being chastised for your sexual orientation is not an excuse to one, play with a woman’s heart and pretend to be heterosexual when you’re not, and two, sleep around indiscriminately, particularity when you’re aware that there may be these biases in sexual health care as it relates to gay men.

And again I find myself asking what the hell does any of this have to do with black women being on welfare?

I don’t think I’m too far off when I say there was just a slight, if not overt, element of bitterness to Daniels’ narrative which no doubt stems back to his childhood and being beat by his father for being gay. But that’s not black women’s fault, nor is it their fault they’ve found some place to be serviced for sexual health issues. There is equal responsibility to be had amongst black men and women women it comes to the rapid spread of AIDS and finger pointting and excusing just won’t cut it if we really want to stop this epidemic and neither will stereotyping. Being the double minority that he is, Daniels should know this more than anyone else.

Since the beginning of film-making, directors have cast actors and actresses into roles based significantly on talent, often letting factors like age fall by the wayside. Age ain’t nothing but a number in Hollywood, and that’s evident when a 41-year-old Barber Streisand was cast to play a 17-year-old in Yentl, or a 34-year-old Stockard Channing was cast to play an 18-year-old girl in Grease. Let’s see what other actresses and actors are old enough to father or give birth to some of the characters they’ve played–or at least be a young aunt or uncle to them.

DONALD GLOVER

Image Source: WENN.com

Donald Glover, who currently stars as 24-year-old college student Troy Barnes on Community, is just marginally older than his character by 5 years, making Glover 29 years old.

Big screen adaptations of novels written by black authors are few and far between, which is precisely why we shouldn’t just support black movies, but black books as well – especially considering African-American achievements in literature are highly underrated. So definitely give these movies a watch, but do yourself one better and pick up the original books, because we already know that the movies are never ever as good as the original literary work

While some people watch movies and quietly root for the villain (no lie, I thought Bane in The Dark Knight Rises was bad a**!), many of us do the complete opposite–we watch these cocky, disrespectful, distasteful and often violent characters with disgust. Some are so good at being bad that we equate the actors with these characters for a long time, and some are eerily effective, to the point that you watch the character, act like you know them, and scoff at the fact that you dislike them so much. If you ever say, “UGH!” when you watch these movies, or shake your head at these characters a few times, then you’ll probably agree that they were villains you loved to hate.

Sanaa Lathan in The Family That Preys

If you watched just 30 minutes of The Family That Preys and viewed Lathan as Andrea, you were probably just as sick of her as we were. She was a conniving cheater, dogging out her hard-working and fine man (Rockmond Dunbar) for the town’s stuck-up socialite and trust-fund baby. And in the end, she revealed that *SPOILER* the son her husband thought was his blood was a product of her affair. She didn’t even look remorseful at all! Who else wanted to reach through the screen and shake her real good???

Academy Award-nominated actress Gaboury Sidibe is on top of her game and clearly living her life like it’s golden. Whether she’s telling behind-the-scenes stories from her latest film, Yelling to the Sky, or talking about her favorite date night spots, she is candid and never misses an opportunity to share a laugh.

On whether or not she prepped for her new movie Yelling to the Sky:

Not a lot. I’m from Bed-Stuy, and I grew up in Harlem so all of the things that happened in the film I’ve seen in real life. So I guess I’ve always been preparing to take on a role like that. That’s why it was so honest, and it was so familiar for me so I didn’t have to do a lot of research at all.

About that guy we saw her with last year:

Wait, what? (laughs) That was like a year and some change, it almost two years ago! That boy has been gone. Game over. That was my ex-boyfriend, and he is very, very “ex” now. I am currently not dating anyone, or maybe I am dating everyone. I love being a grown woman in my own apartment in New York City. You know hanging out with who I want to. I don’t have to call home to make sure some man knows where I am all the time. I am really enjoying that life right now.

Check out the hilarious Gabourey and the full interview over at ESSENCE

Black women aren’t always given the opportunity to portray strong or positive female leading characters on-screen, particularly because Hollywood is dominated by men…white men. Somehow, however, the following women have struck gold in films and television shows that would have them act as outstanding characters, showcasing strength and character in multiple capacities, depicting black women who are struggling with death, romance, violence, revenge, scandal, betrayal or simply trying to survive–all in a gracious and entertaining way.

“Scandal”: Kerry Washington

Kerry Washington stars in ABC’s Scandal as crisis manager, Olivia Pope. Pope’s character is loosely based on the real life crisis manager, Judy Smith. Washington portrays Pope as a headstrong, heavy-hearted woman who personally bears each burden that presents itself in her life. Pope leads a team of attorneys who are tasked with the goal of solving issues for politicians, celebrities and athletes. Scandal doesn’t elude Pope’s personal life, after all, she was carrying on an affair with the president of the United States–making the show all the more interesting.